Watch the 1960s unfold day by day. A news feed for what happened 46 years ago today in the Cold War, politics, science, the arts, religion, leisure and society.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

November 25, 1960: A Republican Southern Strategy

“Given his assumption about the crucial importance of being ‘modern’ enough to capture the Eastern States, Nixon need apologize to no one for the campaign he waged. But it was the assumption itself which was his downfall and which has been the perpetual undoing of the Republican Party,” the National Review said today.

“The question becomes: Can the Republicans, sans Ike, or something like him, win a presidential election at all?

“A review of the electoral tally sheet suggests that the answer is ‘yes’ – that there is available an alternative strategy which, although by no means certain of victory, is at least more promising than the theory on which the GOP has been operating….

“This strategy does not depend for its success on the theory that angry conservatives stay home on election day and that, given a ‘real choice,’ will materialize en masse at the voting booth. …

“The alternative here suggested is founded on more realistic considerations – namely, the actual performance of the electorate on Tuesday, November 8. That showing reveals it would be quite possible to combine the reliably conservative areas of the United States – the Midwest, the Mountain States and the South – into an Electoral College majority.”